Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the cultural roots of Chinese lesson study (LS) so as to account for its persistence in the Chinese education history as well as its importance in ...Chinese teacher professional development and student learning.
Design/methodology/approach
The overarching research question is: “How can Chinese lesson study be theorized from a cultural perspective?” The sub-questions include: “What cultural features do Chinese teachers demonstrate in their LS activities? How can traditional Chinese cultural resources be utilized in explaining the existence and development of these features?” Based on a close reading of firsthand classic texts on Chinese cultural thoughts and related literature, the researchers collected data from Chinese teachers’ LS activities, stimulated recall interviews and focus groups, and related documents. An analysis is conducted with interplay among the theoretical framework, the data, and the researchers’ personal insights.
Findings
The findings of the study include three aspects. First, in terms of their actions, the Chinese teachers enact their understanding of teaching in public lessons through unity of knowing and doing (知行合一) more than conceptual explication. Second, with regard to their thinking, the Chinese teachers use practical reasoning (实践推理) in deliberate practice of repeated teaching through group inquiry and reflection. Third, a tendency of emulating those better than oneself (见贤思齐) is evident in novice teachers’ learning from “good” examples by expert teachers.
Originality/value
The revelation of these cultural features can not only contribute to a deeper understanding about the persistence and importance of LS in the Chinese education history, but also provide an example of analyzing LS from a cultural perspective to the world LS community.
Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease that remains active for a long period, even for life in most patients. The impact of psoriasis on health is not only limited to the skin, but ...also influences multiple systems of the body, even mental health. With the increasing of literature on the association between psoriasis and extracutaneous systems, a better understanding of psoriasis as an autoimmune disease with systemic inflammation is created. Except for cardiometabolic diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, chronic kidney diseases, malignancy, and infections that have received much attention, the association between psoriasis and more systemic diseases, including the skin system, reproductive system, and oral and ocular systems has also been revealed, and mental health diseases draw more attention not just because of the negative mental and mood influence caused by skin lesions, but a common immune-inflammatory mechanism identified of the two systemic diseases. This review summarizes the epidemiological evidence supporting the association between psoriasis and important and/or newly reported systemic diseases in the past 5 years, and may help to comprehensively recognize the comorbidity burden related to psoriasis, further to improve the management of people with psoriasis.
In the present work, dielectric and ferroelectric characteristics of Ba
6−p
R
p
Zr
2+p
Ta
8−p
O
30
(
p
= 1, 2, R = La, Nd, Sm) tungsten bronze ceramics were investigated systematically, and the ...effects of Zr
4+
and Ta
4+
occupation upon the polar order were emphasized. X-ray diffraction patterns confirmed the tetragonal tungsten bronze structure with
P
4/
mbm
space group at ambient temperature. Relaxor ferroelectric behavior was determined for all compounds, even for those who had order
A
1- and
A
2-site occupations, and this was quite different from other tungsten bronze systems. Compared with the Ti- and Nb-based analogue, these Zr- and Ta-based compounds exhibited stronger relaxor nature and obvious polar order disruption. Raman spectra and X-ray photoelectron spectra demonstrated distinct local crystal environment for these compounds with different
B
-site substitutions. Smaller
A
-site cation displacement inside the pentagonal channels, frustrating
B
O
6
deformation, and weaker
B
–O-bond covalency were the main reasons for the severe disruption of ferroelectric polar order in these filled tungsten bronzes.
Through-thickness compressive stress of composite laminates can inhibit the interlaminar shear failure which has been proved by experiments. However, common delamination damage initiation criterion ...cannot well describe this mechanism. For this issue, in this article, based on the insight of the failure mechanism, an interlaminar failure function is constructed at first. Then, a delamination failure criterion considering the effect of through-thickness compression on interlaminar shear failure is established based on logical deductions from a polynomial expansion of the failure function. In the criterion, a constant coefficient with physical meaning is used to describe the effect of through-thickness compression on the interlaminar shear failure, and the estimation method of the coefficient is also given in this study. Here, this failure criterion can be considered as a general form to describe the delamination between laminae, by defining different coefficient, it can be converted to other criteria such as the conventional secondary stress failure criterion or the Christensen failure criterion. Finally, by comparing the numerical calculation and experimental results, the delamination failure criterion proposed in this study exhibited a good prediction ability for the interlaminar damage under different loading conditions.
China’s President Xi Jinping’s Central Asian tour in fall 2013 marked Beijing’s unprecedented (re)turn to Central Asia as a lynchpin of the “Silk Road Economic Belt” of the globally ambitious Belt ...and Road Initiative (BRI). China’s BRI positions Central Asia as the crucial nexus for the cross-regional long-distance loops of trade, investment, and infrastructure development. By revisiting the classical geopolitical theory about the original Eurasian Heartland and its contemporary offshoots, we extract some insights for understanding the new China-Central Asia transboundary regional nexus. In a double-pronged empirical analysis of China’s development strategies regarding Central Asia, we examine: (1) the construction of oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia to transmit energy all the way to China’s east coast, and (2) the launch and expansion of the Eurasian Railroad to transport goods from China’s manufacturing bases in both coastal and inland regions to Europe and Central Asia. In synthesizing the findings from this coupled analysis through classical and contemporary theoretical lenses, we discuss how China’s growing influence in Central Asia via the BRI can reshape the region’s diverse national interests, development opportunities and constraints while fostering closer China-Central Asia bilateral cooperation across multiple national boundaries. In light of the analysis, we also offer an updated view and critique of the classical Heartland/Rimland theories and discuss how a China-centric “New Great Game” differs from its original nineteenth century antecedent while pointing to similar underpinnings.
An excellent pre-column fluorescent derivatization reagent N-acetylhydrazine acridone for the quantitative determination of malondialdehyde was synthesized. Malondialdehyde was derivatized at 80 °C ...for 30 min in the presence of trichloroacetic acid. The separation of the derivative was performed on an Agilent ZORBAX SB-C18 column in conjunction with gradient elution. The excitation and emission wavelengths were 370 nm and 420 nm, respectively. The developed method demonstrated good linear relationship in the range of 0.02 pmol to 2.5 pmol (r = 0.9998). The calculated limit of detection and limit of quantification were 2.5 fmol and 8.3 fmol, respectively. The analytical precisions of the method were in the range of 1.36-2.27% (intra-day) and 2.36-3.92% (inter-day) respectively. The method was sensitive, specific and simple. It was successfully implemented to analysis the malondialdehyde in rat prostate.
In this article, we performed symmetry analysis of perovskite-based multiferroics: bismuth ferrite (BiFeO
)-like, orthochromites (RCrO
), and Ruddlesden-Popper perovskites (Ca
Mn
O
-like), being the ...typical representatives of multiferroics of the trigonal, orthorhombic, and tetragonal crystal families, and we explored the effect of crystallographic distortions on magnetoelectric properties. We determined the principal order parameters for each of the considered structures and obtained their invariant combinations consistent with the particular symmetry. This approach allowed us to analyze the features of the magnetoelectric effect observed during structural phase transitions in Bi
R
FeO
compounds and to show that the rare-earth sublattice has an impact on the linear magnetoelectric effect allowed by the symmetry of the new structure. It was shown that the magnetoelectric properties of orthochromites are attributed to the couplings between the magnetic and electric dipole moments arising near Cr
ions due to distortions linked with rotations and deformations of the CrO
octahedra. For the first time, such a symmetry consideration was implemented in the analysis of the Ruddlesden-Popper structures, which demonstrates the possibility of realizing the magnetoelectric effect in the Ruddlesden-Popper phases containing magnetically active cations, and allows the estimation of the conditions required for its optimization.
Diterpenoids are considered the major bioactive components in
to treat cancer and inflammation, but few comprehensive profiling studies of diterpenoids have been reported. Herein, a stepwise ...diagnostic product ions (DPIs) filtering strategy for efficient and targeted profiling of diterpenoids in
was developed using UHPLC-Q-Exactive-Orbitrap-MS. After UHPLC-HRMS/MS analysis of six diterpenoid reference standards, fragmentation behaviors of these references were studied to provide DPIs. Then, stepwise DPIs filtering aimed to reduce the potential interferences of matrix ions and achieve more chromatographic peaks was conducted to rapidly screen the diterpenoids. The results demonstrated that stepwise DPIs were capable of simplifying the workload in data post-processing and the effective acquisition of low abundance compounds. Subsequently, DPIs and MS/MS fragment patterns were adopted to identify the targeted diterpenoids. As a result, 381 diterpenoids were unambiguously or tentatively identified, while 141 of them with completely new molecular weights were potential new diterpenoids for
. These results demonstrate that the developed stepwise DPIs filtering method could be employed as an efficient, reliable, and valuable strategy to screen and identify the diterpenoid profile in
. This might accelerate and simplify target constituent profiling from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) extracts.
Breast cancer (BC) is the leading cause of cancer-associated mortality among women worldwide, with a poor 5-year survival rate, particularly among patients with metastatic BC. Previous studies have ...indicated that the dysregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) is associated with carcinogenesis and metastasis. Thus, investigating the underlying molecular mechanisms by which miRNAs mediate their effects may aid in the improvement of BC treatment. In the present study, reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction analyses were performed to investigate miR-124-3p expression in BC tissues. The expression of miR-124-3p was significantly decreased in primary BC tissues compared with that in adjacent non-tumor tissues. Downregulated miR-124-3p was correlated with lymph node metastasis and a low overall survival time. Wound-healing and Transwell assays revealed that MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cell motility was inhibited by miR-124-3p, but was promoted by a miR-124-3p inhibitor. Overexpression of miR-124-3p increased levels of E-cadherin, and decreased levels of N-cadherin and Vimentin, indicating that miR-124-3p inhibits the epithelial-mesenchymal transition. In addition, a bioinformatics analysis and subsequent
experiments identified programmed cell death protein 6 (PDCD6) as a direct target of miR-124-3p. Restoration of PDCD6 expression impaired the metastasis inhibitor role of miR-124-3p by promoting cell invasion. Furthermore, the expression of miR-124-3p was inversely associated with PDCD6 mRNA levels in clinical breast tumors. Taken together, these data suggest that miR-124-3p inhibits tumor metastasis by inhibiting PDCD6 expression, and that the miR-124-3p/PDCD6 signaling axis may be a potential target for novel treatments in patients with advanced BC.
A Tale of Two Regions in China Chen, Xiangming
International journal of comparative sociology,
04/2007, Volume:
48, Issue:
2-3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The study of regions has been undergoing an intellectual `renaissance', resulting in a growing literature on the renewed importance and dynamics of varied forms of regions and regionalism (see Amin, ...1999; Lovering, 1999; MacLeod, 2001). However, insufficient research has been devoted to the `crucial middle' role of regions in bridging and integrating global, national, and local economies. This role also turns regions into highly contested terrains for the diverse tensions and outcomes of economic integration, or lack of it, to play out. These include simultaneous tendencies in competitive and cooperative policies and practices of subnational and local governments versus those of global and local firms, as well as shifting opportunities and constraints on economic development and industrial upgrading. In this article, I advance a thesis that new regional dynamics are capable of mediating or restructuring global-local economic relations in varied ways to either facilitate or hinder the course of local economic growth and industrial upgrading. This thesis is elaborated and validated through a comparative analysis of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) in China — two of the most dynamic manufacturing regions in the world. This analysis focuses on how the organizational and spatial formations of regionalized global-local production networks, the regional urban hierarchy, fierce inter-local competition, and decentralized governance have led to rapid economic development in two historically and geographically well-endowed regions but may impede industrial upgrading that is crucial to sustaining their economic development. The article concludes by offering improved regional governance approaches as collective solutions to what appears to be a spatially fragmented microeconomic challenge of upgrading to sustainable economic development.